April 30th,we had been travelling for a complete month and had met all of our goals so far.Although I think it was beginning to tell on us that we were the only people we could speak English to.It was time to meet some other English speakers as soon as possible.
We packed up the tent to another warm day, which made a mockery of the cold night before, but ok.We walked past a strawberry farm and decided that that would be a good breakfast, so we picked our own and the lovely owner gave them to us. On our way we went.The first ride was easy to get and took us to a service area just outside Kumamoto. Then another 2 rides to get us to another service area a little north of the Nagasaki expressway, including one in a mercedes camper van.Unfortunately it was here that our luck died on us, we just couldn't get a lift, it was a nightmare. Especially as for once we needed to be somewhere within a certain time frame,I needed to get to Nagasaki or an Au shop to cancel my phone. In the end we gave in and got an expressway bus to Nagasaki and arrived after 6pm. Fortunately the shop was still open and with the help of an English speaking lady in customer services managed to cancel my phone and confirm that they would not be charging me any more than a normal month. Yeah.We had sushi and then went to stay in an internet cafe. Finally a place with a decent connection and all photos were finally swopped and updated on to the internet. I was so happy, I had been so concerned that I would lose my photos, now they were in 3 places, so all should be well.
May 1st, a new month. We stuffed our 2 back packs into 1 locker and went off to explore Nagasaki. We went to the peace park, peace museum and various other places. We spent a lot of time just wondering around and it was really relaxed. We met a man in the park who asked us to stay at his place, we said ok as he was about 5foot and probably weighed about 100 lbs. We went to the post office and unfortunately were late meeting our home stay host! So we sat in the park playing cards (we played a lot of cards on our trip through Shikoku and Kyushu) and then went to a shopping mall. I was looking around here that it hit me, I was jobless,homeless and about to leave Japan. I wasn't going back to Muroran, there wasn't nothing there for me. Needless to say my spirits were low and I was not a happy bunny.So like the homeless person I was, I went back to the internet cafe for another night of internet and sleep.
The next day was to be spent hitch hiking to Fukuoka, so we took a local train out to get us out of the city centre. We got a short ride really quickly onto the expressway and from there another ride with a young couple all the way to Fukuoka, so we were there about 1pm in the afternoon. We spent it in the park relaxing as we had nothing we needed to do and no where we needed to be, it was a good feeling. In the evening we went to a 24 hour onsen and stayed the night there. I was in heaven, they had fully reclining chairs,with private tv's showing English tv programs. It was a good night. The next morning we wondered around Fukuoka and then caught a train to Shimanoseki and our ferry.
The intl ferry terminal in Shimanoseki is really well located, you walk out of the train station, up onto an elevated walkway and turn right and there it is. We checked in, were asked about our giajin cards, said we didn't have them (we did, but wanted to keep them as a souvenir) and waited.Went through customs,"no officer, nothing to declare" and then onto immigration. I caved and gave the nice man my passport and gaijin card, had my visa cancelled and was hustled out of Japan onto a boat for China.